Top 6 Pre-IPO Share Trading Platforms in India

After the pandemic, many people started putting their money into the stock market. Everyone wanted to do it.

They wanted to be a part of what was happening. Because of this, IPOs (initial public offerings) became popular.

Teenagers were trying to buy stocks. Families were talking about new stocks at dinner.

People were sharing news on social media about making money from their investments.

Right now, everyone’s talking about pre-IPO investments.

This means investing in a company before it sells its shares to the public. It’s not just about making a quick profit. It’s also about supporting companies that have the potential to become very successful.

When you invest in a company before it goes public, you get to invest in the next big thing before anyone else.

The Basics of Pre-IPO Investing

Let’s break down what pre-IPO investing is all about. Before a company joins the stock market, it can get money from big investors through pre-IPO investments.

Companies do this to build their reputation and get a better price when they finally join the stock market.

In the last financial year, these investments grew three times more compared to the year before, showing how popular they’ve become.

Before, only wealthy people and big investors could buy shares of companies before they went public. These shares were only available on paper and were very exclusive.

But thanks to demat accounts and online platforms, you and I can now get involved. The over-the-counter (OTC) and gray markets have made pre-IPO shares more accessible than ever.

I’ll be honest—I typically avoid initial public offerings (IPOs), let alone pre-IPOs.

If you haven’t done your research on the company and the market, it would be wise to do so. Before investing, it’s essential to understand how these investments work.

Why Invest Before the Buzz?

Everyone dreams of investing in the next HDFC or TCS. But by the time these companies hit the stock market, much of their explosive growth has already happened. Pre-IPO investing is like catching the bird before it takes flight, giving you a chance to be part of that early success.

Think about promising sectors like electric vehicles (EVs), where many companies are just starting out. Most EV companies aren’t listed yet, and the only way to get in on the ground floor is through pre-IPO investments.

This is where the hunt for “multi-bagger” returns begins—investments that could multiply your money several times over. But keep in mind- high returns come with high risks.

Pre-IPO investments are less regulated by SEBI, meaning transparency is lacking.

It’s crucial to deal with the right people to navigate these waters safely. That’s why we’ve curated a list of reputable companies offering pre-IPO services. Here it goes:

1. Stockify

Low Service Cost: All costs, including brokerage or commissions for unlisted shares, are included upfront with no hidden fees, giving you peace of mind when budgeting your investments.

Top Unlisted Stocks: Access a daily updated list of active unlisted stocks, complete with details on the company, industry, sector, and current offering price, allowing you to identify and track promising investment opportunities easily.

Insights: Gain a detailed knowledge of each company’s performance with in-depth insights, which include financial statements and trends, as well as important financial measures like the PE, PB, ROE, and D/E ratios.

Blogs and News: Stay informed with the latest blogs and videos about trending unlisted stocks, helping you stay ahead of the market and make informed investment decisions.

Pros

• Educational videos on current market situations.
• Daily updates on IPOs and pre-IPOs.
• Detailed research and best pick recommendations.
• Insights into expected profit/loss and IPO allotment.

Cons

• Minimum investment of ₹50,000 may be high for beginners.
• Basic and less attractive user interface.

2. Precize

Precize is one of the market leaders in the unlisted equities market that actively works with over 2,00,000 clients. It’s quite new, founded in 2021, but it’s already well-known and successful.

Precize is a global company based in the US but it also functions in India providing a very efficient platform for investing in unlisted shares.

The company operates to enable investors to trade share lots that are yet to be listed in the market, thus acting as an essential player in the unlisted equities business. What Precize seeks is to allow any kind of investor to invest in stocks of companies before the beginning of trading.

Features and Offerings

Reserve Access Feature: You have a 15-day window to invest in unlisted shares. If you complete an investment within this timeframe, you’ll receive a lifetime free subscription to the Precize platform. To maintain community quality, accounts not funded within 15 days will be deactivated.

Research-Driven Platform: Precize offers free access to essential data about unlisted companies, including detailed research reports, historical pricing, PE ratios, and market caps. Reports are written by experts approved by SEBI; however, it is still advisable to conduct your research as well.

Precize Beacon: This in-house system collects important data from various sources and provides accurate, real-time asset information.

Precize Portal: The portal functions as a comprehensive dashboard where you can track your investments, monitor profits and losses, view current orders, and check your account balance.

Safety:  The Investment Team vets and approves every unlisted share transaction, ensuring thorough checks and high investment standards before delivering the asset.

 

Pros

• Popular app with a large user base, ensuring good liquidity for trades.
• Allows investments starting from as low as ₹10,000.
• Shares are transferred to your DEMAT account within 48 hours, streamlining the process.
• Transparent in transactions and activities.
• Transaction credit is processed in a timely and efficient manner
• Features an appealing and user-friendly layout that makes navigation simple.
• The support team is efficient and knowledgeable, with excellent email responses. Offline service and in-person experiences are generally positive, although WhatsApp support could be improved.

Cons

• One of the more expensive options due to a 2% commission fee.
• Deposits may take some time to reflect in your account.

3. Planify

Rajesh Singla founded Planify at the beginning of the year. Investors and entrepreneurs seeking capital for startups, MSMEs, unicorns, and pre-IPO businesses can connect through the platform. It has a strong group of tech specialists, financial analysts, and investment bankers.

Before an unlisted company becomes public, Planify allows you to buy and sell its shares. The platform seeks to make private equity accessible to all investors, not just the rich.

With around 300 companies and fifty thousand investors, it’s among the largest private equity markets in India. Planify also helps business owners with financial estimates, pitch decks, evaluations, and equity restructuring.

Features and Offerings

Multiple Plans: Planify offers three plans: Free, Prime, and Pro. The Free plan includes basic filters and newsletters. The Prime plan, priced at ₹999/year, adds advanced screens, customer filters, diversification analysis, and detailed reports.

The Pro plan, at ₹2499/year, is for experienced investors, offering masterclasses, an angel network, custom recommendations, and comprehensive guidance.

Stock Recommendations: Each month, Planify provides recommendations for a couple of stocks with target prices and buy/sell ratings like strong buy, buy, strong sell, sell, or neutral.

Research Reports: You can access detailed research reports with a single click. These reports cover financials, ratios, ownership, news, peer events, and market size. Premium plans include ratings for metrics like management, solvency, growth, and valuation.

Videos: Planify features videos and shorts on the latest IPOs and pre-IPOs, offering analysis to help you decide whether to proceed with further research.

SharkTank Opportunities: Unique to Planify is the exclusive access to investment opportunities in Shark Tank India startups.

Minimum Ticket Size: The platform requires a minimum investment of ₹25,000 to ensure meaningful portfolio growth and insights.

Pros

• Specialists provide personalized advice based on your needs.
• The platform features an attractive and easy-to-use interface.

Cons

• Service can be unprofessional with poor communication and follow-ups, focusing more on commissions.
• The price of shares is higher here than on other platforms. You can only buy or sell large amounts of shares at once.
• Issues with account registration and receiving OTPs.
• Selling offers often fall well below market value.
• You’ll find out about extra charges for paperwork and transfer only after the deal is confirmed.

4. UnlistedZone

UnlistedZone is a leading player in the unlisted shares market. It is known for its honesty and clear practices. Since its start in 2018, it has managed transactions worth over ₹500 crore.

Founded by Mr. Umesh Paliwal, Mr. Dinesh Gupta, and Mr. Santosh Singh, the team excels in market dynamics, analysis, and strategy.

They use technology and savvy marketing to establish a strong presence in the pre-IPO arena. Their emphasis on transparency and ethical conduct promotes investor trust.

Features and Offerings

Screener: This tool allows you to filter and sort firms based on criteria such as price, P/E ratio, ROCE, and ROE. This tool makes it easy to track and prioritize organizations that fulfill your precise requirements.

Resources: UnlistedZone provides instructional resources including videos and blogs. These provide updates on the most recent market happenings and popular themes, allowing you to stay informed and make sound financial decisions.

Charts: You can access detailed chart analyses over different time frames. Set price alerts to get notifications when your target price is reached, so you never miss important price movements.

Fundamentals and Valuation: View essential business fundamentals, such as Market Cap and key financial ratios. The Valuation Meter evaluates if a company’s valuation is high, medium, or low, and gives detailed financial and shareholder information.

Pros

• Shares are usually transferred on the same day as funds, provided the transfer is completed before 2 PM. After that, it might take up to 24 hours.
• The prices may be slightly higher, but UnlistedZone’s long-standing reliability makes it a trustworthy choice.
• The team is supportive and assists with all aspects of the investment process.

Cons

• The minimum lot size can be quite large, making it harder for investors to diversify their holdings.
• The app has a slow user interface with frequent bugs and glitches, leading to an average user experience.
• Customer support has mixed reviews, so experiences may vary.

5. Altius Investech

Altius Investech is India’s biggest platform for buying and selling unlisted and pre-IPO shares. With over 20 years of experience in financial services, Altius has gained the trust of over 8,000 investors from 15 countries.

Sandip and Abhishek Ginodia founded this company in 2016. It has handled investments worth over 300 crore rupees. In the beginning, Altius was known as Abhishek Securities. It was one of the first companies in India to offer digital investment options before companies go public.

Altius has been featured in big newspapers like the Economic Times and Financial Express. It has a lot of experience in the industry and uses the latest technology to help its customers.

Features and Offerings

Extensive Network: Altius uses its broad network to secure exclusive deals before they reach other market players. This means clients gain early access to superior investment opportunities.

Research and Analysis Wing: Their team conducts thorough research and analysis, including fundamental and industry assessments, to ensure accurate pricing of investments.

Legal, Tax & Compliance Expertise: The platform has a team of specialists, including CAs, MBAs, CFAs, and lawyers, to help with any legal, compliance, or tax problems.

Notable Exits: Altius showcases its success through notable exits provided to investors, offering proof of its effective investment strategies.

Safety: Trusted by major firms like Reliance Securities and Karvy, Altius offers escrow services and has ICICI and HDFC Bank as execution guarantors.

Relationship Manager: Each client gets a personal manager to help with their investments and make sure everything goes smoothly.

Pre-IPO Flagship Basket: This unique feature offers a portfolio of four top pre-IPO shares, designed to be complementary and balanced. It also includes a detailed investing rationale.

Graphical Data: Altius provides extensive graphical data, including detailed financial trends, corporate actions, and dividend announcements from inception.

Pros

• Receive payment on the same day you sell shares. This ensures quick liquidity for your investments.
• The graphical information provided is extensive and detailed, which is a rare feature among platforms.
• Minimum amount for unlisted shares is just Rs 10,000, making it accessible to more investors.
• The platform is user-friendly with smooth transactions and a good UI. They offer a decent selection of unlisted shares.
• There are no brokerage or service charges on transactions. Everything is included in the price itself. This keeps calculations simple to track.

Cons

• The platform requests access to photos and videos on your device, which some users find intrusive.

6. TradeUnlisted

TradeUnlisted is a popular platform for purchasing and selling pre-IPO and unlisted equities. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Mumbai, it has quickly established itself as a leader in India’s pre-IPO and unlisted markets.

The platform gained tremendous popularity among global investment managers in India seeking unlisted and pre-IPO possibilities. TradeUnlisted is well-known as the premier choice for clients and partners looking to invest in this market.

Founded by Hitesh Dhankani, an IIM Calcutta alumnus with a background in asset management, research, and consultancy, the company excels in performance, strategy, and growth.

Features and Offerings

Dashboard: The TradeUnlisted dashboard provides a clear and simple view of your investments. While not particularly pictorial, it clearly displays your invested value and current holdings. You can also see a thorough breakdown of your portfolio allocation.

Top Companies Basket: Like Altius, TradeUnlisted has a ‘Top All Weather Companies’ basket. This option allows you to invest in a well-curated selection of reliable unlisted shares without doing much research. This simplifies investing by giving a pre-approved list of stocks that are thought to be safer.

Company Info: The platform gives a clear picture of each company, showing how they do business, what products they offer, and any recent news. You can find detailed information on finances, board members, who owns shares, and yearly reports.

Research Reports: TradeUnlisted provides detailed reports made by their analysts. These reports, about 15 pages long, explain the company’s background, how it’s doing now, and why it might be a good investment, helping investors decide before buying shares.

 

Pros

• People often mention that the customer service is reliable and helpful. Many users have a good experience because the support team responds quickly.  The team knows their stuff and makes the process easy.
• The platform has good prices and lets you buy small amounts of shares.
• Services are fast and smooth. You’ll get the shares in your account within 2 days.

Cons

• The app doesn’t work well sometimes. It doesn’t get updated very often. It’s better to use the website for a smoother experience.

Conclusion: Is Pre-IPO Right for You?

Investing in early-stage companies comes with significant risks; over 90% of these ventures fail, making the odds of profiting lower compared to listed stocks. For retail investors, it’s hard to look deeply into the financial records of private companies.

This is because there are no strict mandates when it comes to their public disclosures. Also, smaller companies can easily manipulate their financials to show a better picture of their business.

However, if you have a deep understanding of the market and a positive outlook on the Indian equity scene, taking a calculated risk might be worth it. Despite the emergence of newer platforms with advanced features, we still recommend using an established platform like Precize.

While it charges an additional 2% commission, this fee is worth it. Precize supports a seamless user experience, lower minimum lot sizes, and efficient customer support, making it a solid choice.

When choosing a platform, always opt for one with a strong user base. An established platform often has more accountability, which can be reassuring.

Regardless of the platform you choose, avoid buying at the listed price. Reach out to the platform’s team to negotiate a better deal, as discounts are often available.